Here presented is the final clue in our little experiment. It being the start of a story, a novel to be precise. In fact, we’re getting tingles just thinking how lovely it all comes together, and the challenge, of course, is to see whether you can break our mystery. We will present the answer soon enough – maybe next week, the week after that, or maybe because it’s always one of those two weeks, we’ll deliberately wait until the third.

If you have the answer, or any answer (and we’ve seen brilliance in those before [1,2]), please say so below in the comments. Or better yet, post something. We’ll link to it, actually, we’ll link to all of them. Also, if you like that sort of thing, answers will guide this novel which, to be sure, will be followed up – until we are all bored of it anyway.

By the way, the fastest, best, most complete (that is, correct) answer will prompt an interview between Ben, myself and the answeree (if there is such a word) on any scientific topic the winner chooses. Which, if it is good (really good), we’ll put up at the Science Creative Quarterly.

I think it would be fun to have a go at using the conjecture presented to help guide a novel proper. Our intent, anyway, is to do many more of these puzzles, and having a unifying theme (whether it be a novel or other things) sounds like a great idea as well as a good excuse to hone those writing chops.

Drat, sry for the double post the internet has been erratic today. Got a 404 error thought it was gone.

SO thats not ‘It’, eh.

Whoa… I could say I know the answer, but then I could be lying. Or maybe not.

Mind sharing, cause I’m more confused than ever. Then again I’m frequently confused.

What I ‘got’ from this last clue was a reference to some sort of parasite. Obviously you can’t have the viral pox for 13 years… can you? So prolly bed bugs (Cimex lectularus). Can anyone else think of a something other kind.

1) 42 is right, but my pox reference is wrong, therefore not the correct answer.
2) Pox is totally wrong and we should focus on either Colin or the Bed for the reference.
3) You are doing this whole thing just to demonstrate confirmation bias.

The bird movie? 21 seconds long.
“maybe next week, the week after that, or maybe because it’s always one of those two weeks, we’ll deliberately wait until the third.” = 21 days
Seattle World’s Fair: Century 21 Expo

How would you even be able to check into that? You know, maybe we should be thinking more metaphorically. Like Dan Brown, since Dave did do a review of Da Vinci Code earlier. Most of those puzzles were wordplay and symbols. Maybe the solution is scientific but not necessary the logic behind it?

fish is to poison
cow is to disease
elvis is to fever
bird is to flu
colin is to pox

However, MY guess is that in the fashion of http://www.eon8.com/ the experiment is to take random things of vast meanings and have no mystery whatsoever to solve. The mystery is how the human mind can find links between everything.

The common thread must be something around eating. Probably eating enormous amounts. Think about it.
Clues going backwards:
5. I think, as said previously, that it must be bed bugs not pox. The “pox” are bites from the bedbugs eating him
4. Swarm of birds eating whatever it can find
3. “Cow is food machine” don’t need to say more
2. Elvis is famous for eating extradinary amounts of food
1. The fish is a piranha

I’d also guess vaccination. Mad cow, avian flu, world pandemic, fish virus in great lakes, and a giant space needle for vaccinating the world. But mad cow isn’t a virus right? I’ll tell you what virus I’d like to get….http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Access_Virus

Vozrozhdeniye Island. I say this because of the Space Needle on the Elvis movie cover, Anthrax for the cow, Colin Powell from the novel intro, and the fish that lives in the seabed grasses. Colin Powell gave a presentation on Vozrozhdeniye Island warning of anthrax contamination. Chemical and biological munitions are suspected of having been dumped on the seabed there.

Just guessing, but is this something to do with the discovery of the small pox vaccine, derived from innoculation with cow pox?
According to the IMDB, the tagline for the Elvis Worlds Fair film was “Swinging higher than the space needle with the gals and the songs at the famous Worlds Fair”. Is the word needle significant?

Like the idea behind the experiment, so I’ve got to participate even if I look stupid….so here’s a snowball:

I stopped looking at the content and trying to link it all up, there were just too many possibilities for me.

I looked at the packaging.

Lithograph of fish
Film still of cow
DVD of Elvis
Video clip of birds in garden
Photo image of written and printed text

Is the theme to do with the “technologies” by which the content is graphically represented? From drawing and litho to analog film to digital film to mini QT clip to electronic image of text? The sequencing may be wrong, but I remain tempted to avoid looking at what’s in the package and concentrate on the packaging. Form not content.

instead of many individuals offering guesses to what might be called the “full solution”, wouldn’t we do better to work collaboratively at tiny elements of the puzzle, establishing smaller kinds of hypotheses and testing them collectively?

in that spirit, then, here are some things i notice that might be explored further by other minds:

i suspect the sequence of the clues is, indeed, relevant. some evidence to support that claim: at http://scienceblogs.com/worldsfair/2006/07/puzzle_fantastica_1_update_b_w.php benjamin cohen writes the following: “Some commenters have gone for an analysis of numbers. Others are seeking common patterns. Few are treating the clues as accruing, while many are picking out minor features of each clue, interpreting the ‘real’ clue to be a visual subset of the main clue. Some consider the clues in aggregate; others hold them separate.” it’s notable that in that catalog of observations, he really only identifies one thing commenters *aren’t* doing–namely, treating the clues as cumulative. as a teacher, i hear teacherly instincts behind that noticing-of-the-absent. when we want our students to discover on their own and we see them failing to achieve the kind of understanding we’re looking for, we tend to observe what’s almost said, or almost suggested, or what only one or two students have done. it’s a strategy of allowing for experiential learning without leaving students hanging. i suspect that mr. cohen might not have intended this observation to be itself a “clue,” but that his teacherly practice insinuated itself here. also, the delivery of the first trio of images was very consciously named “fish-cow-elvis”–a choice that certainly emphasizes the *sequence* of the images. similarly, in the sidebar we now have the language “a fish, a cow, something to do with Elvis, a video, and the start of a novel”–again a sequence, admittedly a natural arrangement from the order the clues were originally presented in, but i still sense a *choice* being made there. finally, mr. cohen’s post on boingboing (where i heard about this whole project today) uses the language “so-called final clue”–the “so-called” seems a bit unnecessary, no? why would it be there if not to further emphasize the *accrual* of clues (consciously or otherwise)?

Let me clarify my Vozrozhdeniye Island answer a bit: I think the answer involves the cleanup of the island and seabed agreed to by the U.S. and Uzbekistan. I know that Colin Powell was concerned about terrorists getting hold of the material left there and considered it an urgent matter to clean it up. This sort of ties in with the new clean bed in the little novel introduction. By the way, the Space Needle on the Elvis cover was a potential terrorist target in 2001.

Well, these clues lead me to The Coronavirus, of which Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) is the most well-known.

How did I get there? Well it happened at the World’s Fair after all. My favorite of those, although I was born much too late to attend, was the 1939 World’s Fair in New York. Think of it — the television, the zipper, urban planning, all of the optimism the future was going to hold, only to have it fade away as each of the countries left the fair to begin World War II.

Well, if you follow the map at the 1939 World’s Fair from the Japan exhibit (G13) (a Japanese fish, no?) to the National Dairy Products exhibit (F12) (a cow gives milk) to the Aviation exhibit (T1) (birds do fly, especially in the motion offered by a video), it leads you right to the Corona Gate at the front of the World’s Fair. Since Colin in the novel does have an animal virus, that Corona could relate to another animal virus. Hence the “corona”virus that yes can cause illness in the “colon.”

Well, that’s as close as someone who studied social sciences can get. Thanks for the puzzle guys!

Here we go: I think the guys at the World’s Fair blog (David and Ben) want to have a barbeque. Here’s my reasoning. The first three clues, a fish, a cow and Elvis Presley’s “It Happened at the World Fair.” Then, a home movie of birds in a backyard. Lastly, a beginning of a novel about someone who had the pox. Even though it was most likely an infestation of bedbugs, this makes me think of chicken pox. So, add all this up, there will be a barbeque happening in of one of the writers’ backyards, with fish, beef, and chicken to eat.

it’s apparently not “dead” (like colin in the novel, and like elvis, who may have used tetrodotoxin from the cowfish to enter a coma), and its presumed non-extinction is being “milked” by certain organizations for increased funding (perhaps like the owners of elvis’ creative properties).

Ok so the numbers thing may be wrong. I too have been wondering about the cow connection. The Fish is a cowfish, the cow is, well, a cow, and Elvis sang “Milk-cow Blues Boogie”. The birds could well be Cow birds, and the pox in the novel could be cowpox. I’m having a cow over this problem.

All I could get out of the clues was all animals on earth, with each animal represented by an image, fish-anything in the water, cows-animals on land, man-who can pretty much go anywhere, and then birds-who can go into the sky.. At first I thought it was just vertebrates, but then the novel beginning kind of threw me. Perhaps the bedbugs represent the invertebrates? Something about evolution and extinction, maybe? Or perhaps the different technologies in representing the clues is the answer? Technology leading to extinction?

But even as there have been a variety of fascinating theories regarding the *content* of the various clues, what has struck me most is the breath of the approaches to representation that depict those contents, and the variety of adaptation present.

The first clue is a series of 3 images.

The first image is a JPEG adaptation of an illustration (I’m not sure what kind — a lithograph). It appears to be a representation of a type of fish that doesn’t actually exist (are there really fish with teeth?), though I could be mistaken.

The second image is a JPEG adaptation of what appears to be a mid-20th century composite photograph adapted to a poster with a text overlay. It is a representation of a cow containing a machine, with text portraying the cow as a “food factory.”

The third image is a JPEG adaptation of a DVD cover and DVD (partially depicted), which is itself an adaptation of an Elvis film from (I believe) the 1960s. There are a variety off representations present.

The second clue (fourth item overall) is a QuickTime adaptation of a recorded film or video featuring birds, among other things.

The third and final clue (fifth item overall) is a GIF adaptation of text purporting to be the start of a novel. The text depicts the beginning of a story featuring a child (Colin), the pox, and “the Bed.”

One candidate solution is the evolution of representational media: illustration, photograph, film, video… novel. The problem is that the novel would either be ordered first or second, depending on how you ordered it with respect to the illustration.

Another candidate inpterpretation would be simulacra: copies for which there is no original. The fish is an illustration of a non-existent type, the composite cow photo is fantastic and impossible, the film is fictional and depicts no real events or people. The problem is that the video seems to be a representation of things that exist.

Which leaves me with representation: a variety of representational media are used, and all are concrete representations — as opposed to, for example, abstract paintings, or instrumental music, which do not function as representations of anything. This is the only solution I can devise to the puzzle that utilizes all of the clues — though admittedly, it does so while discarding much of the *content* of those clues.

It’s possible that my Vozrozhdeniye Island answers need expanding to include the drying of the Aral Sea around the island as possible evidence of global warming. That drying will eventually expose the seabed. The video seems to include a blow-up fish or pool in the yard that is deflated. A boat is sitting on the ground. Also, cows contribute to global warming via their methane emissions. The Seattle Space Needle could represent the gathering of scientists in Seattle to discuss global warming. At any rate, I think there’s a connection between Space Needle, cows/methane/anthrax, the cowfish that lives in the seabed which includes seagrass and coral which are threatened by global warming, and the Colin Powell nervousness about the Aral Sea drying and exposing the old biological munitions underneath it. Perhaps the answer is global warming.

2. “It Happened at the World’s Fair” is a movie involving a cropduster (and a chubby Elvis Presley and lots of cheez).

3. Cows produce meat and milk for us using the energy they get from feed (hay, corn, etc) grown with pesticides.

4. Birds and other animals feed on small insects that have eaten vegetation treated with pesticides; the chemicals are passed along the food chain, from the creatures that eat the plants, to the animals that eat these creatures, and so on.

5. People get “sick”, experiencing various adverse effects of the pesticides that make their way through the food chain to us. This is not a story about the sick people, though. It’s a story about pesticides (like the bed in the final clue, this is the reason for the sickness).

From the first three clues, I gathered the theme was Selective Breeding/Agriculture

The Fish: Haeckelï¿½s biogenic theory for formation of race was adopted by the Nazi party in their disturbed attempt to furnish conditions for a superior master race. He spent much of his life immersed in evolutionary theory and saw connections between natural selection and artificial selection (selective breeding).

The Cow: This poster was used to indicate the potential of future agricultural promise ï¿½ improved milk production ï¿½ make the cow a machine.

The Movie: Elvis flew a crop duster (a way to select which plants will survive) and the backdrop was the Worldï¿½s Fair (often a showcase of agricultural innovations).

The quicktime video eludes me . . . blackbirds are often a bane to a farmerï¿½s existence for crop plants ï¿½ but, that seems a stretch.

The Pox seems not to be smallpox as mentioned above, but rather Syphilis. Syphilis has a rather interesting history and was not always genital specific. It has evolved over the years to find its niche. (I played with the idea of syphilis being the theme ï¿½ pulled in the cow and movie on that one too but lost the thread).

Perhaps the theme is then evolution. Evolution could be defined as changes in the gene pool of a population (microevolution). This could apply to artificial selection/selective breeding . . . and agriculture in essence is breeding the desirable stock (choosing the most desired phenotypes and in turn the most desired genotypes).

But the birds? Population? Changing frame of reference? Microevolution? Again a stretch which leads me to believe I am pushing it.

Gary Lockwood was in ‘Splendor in the Grass.’ (Look at the DVD cover)
Also, from that cover, the Seattle Space Needle… Seattle has a sculpture called ‘The Grass Blades.’
The cow grazes on grass.
The cowfish lives in seagrass on the sea bed.
The birds are eating in the grass.
Colin is a character in ‘The Secret Garden,’ which features lots of grass. He also happens to be a bedridden character who revives when in the garden.
Strange connections I think, but they are there.

My guess is that the puzzle is about the relation of culture to the evolution of species.
1) is a wild fish, representing nature.
2) is a domesticated animal, the cow has been genetically created through breeding by mankind.
3) represents culture – the movie of Elvis is an icon of the change from farming and domestication to modern society.
4) is the pigeon, a parasite that lives on the trash generated by people in large cities.
5) clue is pox, a virus originating from fast population growth in unsanitary conditions. (hence names like cowpox or chickenpox)

The five examples taken together are a timeline of the result of increasing population density. 1-state of nature, 2-domestic animals, 3-culture and art, 4-pest animals feed on our waste, 5-viruses spread more easily in denser cities. In other words, the effect of humans on the evolution of traits in other organisms has increased likewise with population and culture. At the current point, our culture of science allows us to generate new varieties of life at our whim!

Please note that some people have also posted their thoughts at a later update to this Puzzle, at this link. Their contributons may be useful (and I’m not giving anything away by noting this — just keeping everything on the up and up).

One thing to add is that, at that link, the fish is identified by Chris as such: “definitely a type of cowfish (Tetrosomus gibbosus).” It’s my understanding that the fish is also of the type Ostraciontidae.

“The puzzle is more meta than just ‘What is the connection between these items’, and the question is really “What is the correct answer when there is more than one valid interpretation of the data?”. The answer to that is, I think, “Whatever you believe until proven wrong”.

“However, MY guess is that…the experiment is to take random things of vast meanings and have no mystery whatsoever to solve. The mystery is how the human mind can find links between everything.
Posted by: Aaron Rhodes | July 26, 2006 05:23 PM”

I’d bet on that before all these other super specific answers. Although there does seem to be an eating/pestilence kind of vibe to it all. I bet it has seomthing to do with Dow Chemical.

Addendum: after reading over some of the other posts, I’ve really decided that Puzzle Fantastica is The World’s Fair itself. Kind of fractal-like, where the whole thing is contained in a tiny subset of the thing. like those water snake ballon things, turing itself inside out. like in the movie version of contact, inside the human eye is the whole universe.

I mean: c’mon.
1. We have the Haeckel fish thing (a guy famous for cataloging nature). a.k.a. Natureland

2. The cow and elvis movie might somehow fit into the Art/Science divide.

3. The video clip of the birds, a.k.a The Film Building.

4. The Novel excerpt, a.k.a The Book Building.

All individually imbued with enough semi-related subcontext to get us all discussing and hashing out theories. About environment and ethics and whatnot. With links to other sites, books, thoughts, people.

The cumulative effect of all of it being the experience of the World’s Fair itself. By taking part in the PF as a microcosm, we are creating and living the experience that is the WF as a macrocosm. This is not a story about the people involved (as intersting as our flights of fancy might be), but The Bed where it all takes place.

So far, the solutions discussing the media for the clues, have been the most interesting ones (Lithograph, DVD, Photograph, QT movie, Book text). I can’t help thinking that the text in the novel (discussing the fact that the “bed” is more important than the “boy”) implies that the solution is in the “bed” for the clues i.e. the media.

I also think that the “correct” solution, once it presents itself, will be blindingly obvious, and will be the only thing that actually makes sense. Far too many of the current solutions seem to follow a best fit approach to the data, and the hypotheses presented only kinda-sorta work. Let us try to look for something that can be the only possible solution to the problem.

No answers so far, but hopefully somoene can jump onto this line of thinking and take it to the next level. Kinda like modern scientific research really.

addendum #2: as they used to say in fancy grad school, the poet writes the poem in such a way as to instruct the reader HOW to read the poem. the thing itself, if well constructed, is a how-to manual of its own experience. the act of reading it teaches how to read it better.

the PF as a skeleton key to the process of the WF itself. It’s a puzzle, a metaphor, and nothing at all. It’s what you make it. “What we have here is a success to communicate.”

– the fish can belong to a school
– a bunch of Elvis’s are known as Elvii
– a cow can belong to a herd
– the birds belong to a flock
– the bed bugs in the mattress belong to an infestation (I made the leap that the Pox was actually a misdiagnosis of bed bugs.

Well, then maybe the horoscope. The fish is for Pisces, The cow for Taurus, Elvis (who had a twin brother) for Gemini. I can’t see the video — are the birds ramming something, hence Taurus? Oh, of course, Colin must have the crabs, of Cancer fame…

Unless something better occurs to me, my current working theory is “polio vaccine.”

We’ve got lots of cow-related things: a cow, cowfish, cowbirds, cowpox. The cowpox story points to a fifth cow-related thing: vaccines, which got their name from the use of cowpox exposure to inoculate against smallpox.

The link between Elvis and vaccines is that Elvis’ televised polio shot (in 1957, as far as I have been able to determine) is widely credited for popularizing polio vaccinations in the United States. Elvis received the Salk vaccine, but in 1962, the year of the Seattle Century 21 World’s Fair, the Sabin vaccine was first licensed for public use. For what it’s worth, Salk was also listed among the “celebrity” attendees of that particular World’s Fair, the theme of which was “science.”

Wanted to point out a satellite clue that is found at the post about moles (link). The image clearly has the same “50” as depicted in the video. I think there are possibly two key points here – that is, the video is (1) of Dave’s lawn or (2) something about moles(?)

I, too, think it is COW. Cowbirds, a cow, a cowfish? 3 of 5 are money right off the bat, and it’s only a small leap to cowpox. It seems to be the most obvious solution to fit 4 of 5 almost immediately.

I’m backing up and sticking with my ‘grass’ theory. There’s just too much grass involved in everything about this puzzle. I cannot believe it to be accidental. Gary Lockwood’s ‘Splendor in the Grass’ role. Elvis apparently sang a lyric in the movie about ‘greener grass.’ The cow lives and eats in grass. The cowfish lives and eats at the grassy sea bed, sometimes called grass beds. The birds are obviously eating in the grass. Children have apparently been playing on the grass. And the novel intro parallels somehow a storyline in the novel ‘The Secret Garden.’ It seems very focused on the bed and its rejuvenative effect.

So I have a hunch that the grass is where this puzzle wants to take us. Things are lying in the grass all over. Splendor in the Grass, living in the grass, eating in the grass, lying in the grass. Wordsworth wrote a line in a poem about ‘splendour in the grass.’ He connects directly to Walt Whitman, who wrote ‘Leaves of Grass.’

Putting the meta-experiment aside for a moment, I don’t think the puzzle is something that can be solved by seeking a internal relationship between the five clues, each of which has complex meanings of their own.

However, they do have something in common: all have direct relationships, intweavings with, one or more element of your blog, “The World’s Fair.”

I can put this theory forward with the initial three evidence/clues and it continues to hold true in the face of the new evidence offered by the additional two.

The fish, as earlier posters have pointed out, is drawn by Ernst Haeckel, mentioned in your ‘about’ section. The picture falls into “Natureland” in your map. And to a lesser extent, the Art/Nature non divide.

The Cow with robot innards, as a very early poster pointed out, refers back to “The Cow: A story.” That story features a philosophical discussion on the meaning of life for robots and cows. The picture falls alternatively into the “Ethics Palace.” (“A cow is a food factory”?) or “The Art/Science divide.”

The Elvis movie, which has the most obvious tie with “The World’s fair” of any of the clues, is also of course a film and goes into the film building (‘Science in film in general’.

So far, so good. Enter the meta-experiment, which I think has been well understood by earlier posters: a live scientific experiment in how theories rise and fall to fit evidence. The readers’ comments themselves, full of links to the outside web, fall cartographically into the “Website building.”

The film of Dave’s backyard refers to one of the website’s creators. I see this as the weakest part of my solution, but maybe other readers can help. It also, obviously, could fall into the film building. Or “Natureland.” Or the “about” section. It doesn’t fit very well into the Art/Science divide, an exeption among the clues.

Finally the book goes into the Book Building, as a study of about writing.

The “puzzle” as a whole, as its categorizing suggests, goes into “Knoxville ’82: Where Miscellany Thrive.”

If this doesn’t approximate an answer, I hope it’s close enough to show someone else the way. If it is more or less the answer, thanks to those who posted before me.

“If I have seen a little further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.”

OK, well if none of my above answers have been identified as correct, then it is not SARS, an omelette nor the horoscope.

Stepping on the shoulders of those above who believe it centers around this blog, one more idea… How about George Ferris. He built bridges (over the fishies), railroads (to move cows to market), and of course the Ferris Wheel (first happened at the World’s Fair — see the top of this page). It picked up people to bird’s eye level, and they got sick until they got up! It all fits! Yay!

The first of a five-part series of articles about warming and pollution problems appeared in the Los Angeles Times yesterday. I could not help but notice that the article used the expression ‘a pox on the oceans’ as if it were a common phrase. It also discussed toxic, primitive organisms causing problems for coral on the sea bed. As I read it, I could not help but point out to anyone who would listen that there seemed to be a connection between the article and this puzzle. I won’t describe the reactions I got, but I am still leaning toward the healthy environment, grass, global warming idea.

We applaud again all of these wonderful approaches to the puzzle — such imagination!, such enthusiasm!, such inventiveness! — but acknowledge that the solution has yet to be found. We also ease out of this comment post (as an earlier one) before readers start to interrogate our every word.
— BRC (and on behalf of DN)

Hmmmmm. Now, that is a huge set of clues in Benjamin Cohen’s most recent post.

Certainly, “applause” set the birds in motion, and Haekel gave great “acknowledgment” to the fish. Now, “imagination” was required for the novel, “enthusiasm” is Elvis’ trademark, and what “inventiveness” must occur to create a mechanical cow.

If he had only elaborated for only one or two more sentences, I am confident he would have led us to the only obvious solution. Drats! Why does he have to be so darn laconic, terse, and concise!!!

Now given his previous comment regarding Ostraciontidae — which secretes ostracitoxin poisonous to other fishes and themselves — which is also known as a “box” fish, it is obvious he is telling us that we must think outside the box. Hmmmmm.

I love this horrible torture! I was so sure that a recent solution was the correct one that I completely gave up thinking about it. Now I can start tormenting myself again and I’m looking forward to it. I just wanted to say that this has been a lot of fun.

I am still looking for commonalities. That may not be the best response to the clues. Perhaps, some other pattern? But, nevertheless, one more try…

I see a common connection to HONEYCOMBS, as follows:

After all, boxfishes are known for their hexagonal or honeycomb skin and skeleton patterns.

The cow ruminates with the reticulum compartment of its stomach that has a honeycomb-like lining.

Elvis had many songs referring to honeycombs — Cross My Heart and Hope to Die (“I miss those kisses from your honeycomb, This humble bumble bee just wants to fly back home”), Cindy, Cindy (“I wrote it in a letter, carved it on a tree, Told it to a honeycomb, told it to a bee), and In Your Arms (“Just like a bee in a honeycomb, I’m gonna make myself right at home, In your arms, In your arms).

Recent studies have shown that bacterial spores, that could have caused Colin’s problems, also have hexagonal, honeycomb structures.

Still can’t view the bird video — any help there? Exhibiting a hive mentality, perhaps?

I’m just going to throw this out there and see what happens. I think it’s about the development of biological warfare. I’m probably way off base, so I’ll save my logic for someone who might actually care to ask.

I think that one should be able to figure out the answer by just looking at the first three clues. I think the three pictures were given first and then the fourth and fifth (video and novel) were added later. So, if those clues are simply added clues, the first three should suffice. I think maybe I am trying to consider too many facts. I am going to try looking only at the first three, come up with an answer, then check to see if that answer has anything to do with the final clues.

I’m working on something that interests me about these clues. Why is it that the paragraphs from the novel are not simply typed into the HTML of this page? Rather, they are presented as a graphic. I’ve noticed that every single image, including the video, combines graphics or imagery with some form of writing, either numbers or words. The fish has an ‘8’ on it, etc.

Words/letters/graphics. Ideogram. Pictogram.

Also, one more thing. The picture having to do with Elvis… the little picture on this page is not the same picture that comes up when you click the little picture on the sidebar. What comes up is a picture of a DVD box that is missing the little picture of Elvis’s face down by his foot. The little picture is not a DVD. It is a picture of a poster.

all the pictures seem a little different when you click on the sidebar. The cow image is darker and doesn’t have the rounded edges. And the fish one maybe is the same, but becomes huge and expands beyond my screne.

and the initial post did make sure to reference both the images below and on the side.
the video and novel sidebar images don’t link.

To add credence to the honeycomb concept, the 1967 World’s Fair included a Fuller geodesic dome similar to the fish’s scale structure.

Another concept is that the fish and cow are facing left, while on the video box, Elvis is NOT facing left, but in fact Joan O’Brian is facing left. She prominently played a nurse, not only in this movie, but also “Operation Petticoat” and “It’s Only Money.” So, perhaps it relates to nursing, more directly related to the milk-giving Cow as the clue before.

I must admit that I’m a little hung up on the small Elvis picture that becomes a completely different picture when you click it. No one would put that in a puzzle unless it meant something… right? The cow also, which appears to have some writing in the upper and lower margins when it’s small, but not when clicked to expand.

Well, Benjamin, I am glad you appreciate the elegance, and I, in turn, do appreciate the response. But, we must keep trying, and while this one is far from elegant, here goes…

Considering the concept that introduces this puzzle of the nature of evidence. One of the most interesting examples of the quandry of determining evidence is the scientific rationale for the set of Jewish laws of Kashruth — the dietary rules that decide if food is Kosher. These rules are not easily explainable via science. There are parallels to those trying to reconcile faith and science with respect to evolution.

The Wikipedia relates this well, that there is a line of thought that these rules “were given because of the well-known Jewish tendency to rationalize and probe – a sort of reminder that, while the Universe is generally explainable, one cannot possibly understand everything.”

Among the rules, well, of the things in the waters, to be kosher they must have fins and scales, hence the first clue that is the fish.

Also, of the beasts of the earth, to be kosher they must have cloven hooves and chew its cud, hence the clue that is the cow.

As to the Elvis-related clue, let’s come back to that one.

The rules for fowl are a little more complicated, but they may not be birds of prey or scavengers. I cannot see the bird video, but I must assume that in the bird clue those in the video may pass this test though.

But, Elvis, Elvis. How can he be connected here. I knew he was just crazy about fried peanut butter and banana sandwiches, which are kosher, but not a close enough link at all.

Now, as to Colin. Please note that he was approaching his 13th birthday. It is at this age, that a male child would be considered to reach the age of maturity and be responsible for his own actions, or Bar Mitzvah — literally the son of the commandments — including the laws of kashruth. During the ceremony of Bar Mitzvah, a blessing called an aliyah is given, literally meaning to rise or ascend, just as Colin was finally able to do from the bed central to this novel.

I came up with Hepatitis. Elvis had it apparently. And his mother died of it supposedly. Then I moved on to Herpes. There’s a 24-hour test for Herpes called, get this… the ELVIS test. It stands for ‘Enzyme Linked Virus Inducible System.’ Fish get it. Birds get it. Cows get it. I don’t know, it just seems like a possibility. Does anyone agree with this line of inquiry?

Gotcha Alessandro. It is like the fact that the wanting is sometimes more pleasurable than the getting. OK, I buy that.

OK, so here goes. Maybe it has something to do with what the subject of the clue does to its environment as some have begun to explore above.

We all know the cowfish poisons, killing life, but potentially in defense of its own. Hmmm, while the cow fertilizes, promoting growth, the birds eat seeds preventing it. While Elvis dusted crops, removing pests, the bed hosted pests, enabling them to thrive.

I’m hampered because my computer won’t play the Quicktime video, so I’m relying on what has been said, but my answer is Viral Internet Curiosity.

The fish, if I’m not mistaken, is a mock-up of the Babel Fish from the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, which brings together all manner of seeming nonsense into coherency, like the internet.

The cow-machine demonstrates the constant information consumption of the human-machine, constantly digesting, melded with the internet.

Elvis is the spreading and staying power of things which are not actually original, but are stylishly rendered. Most of the crap that spreads around the internet is like that. In this case, it shows something popular, (Elvis), and it references The World Fair–which is what brings this all together–but it’s still basically just rehash.

And, more importantly, the point of all the pieces together is to fire up the viral internet curiousity that makes this site what it is.

The birds on the lawn are us, pecking away, anonymously seeking our little worms of information to swallow whole and possibly disgorge later.

The novel speaks of a viral disease. When Colin leaves the bed, or the seat of his illness, i.e. the internet, the illness disappears.

Finally, as the clue goes on Boing-Boing, another spreader of virals, “If you get it, you’ll know you got it.” We are all the answer, performing it because we’ve got it.

Oh, and also, adding to my earlier theory: Elvis is dead. Buried, decomposing, his body becoming nutrients for the grass in that yard which the birds are eating. (Although I still think they’re eating the bird seed Elvis benevolently scattered around for them.)

solution: the answer is whatever YOU make of the information presented in the puzzle.

postulate: each of the original 3 items was a “clue” that the initial 3 individuals who “knew” the puzzle chose.

they chose their clues for their own reasons – which are immaterial, actually. however, im sure that their reasoning will be fascinating to read about once the puzzle has been solved. in fact i could hypothesize (like the others) as to what each item originally meant to the original supplier of its representation. whether the clues combine together or not is also immaterial. again, it will be fascinating to read about whether there actually WAS a unifying theme present among the initial presentees.

the basic premise is that the worlds fair brings together people and ideas into one place. this puzzle works similarly. the fair itself is just a signpost along the journey of discovery.

the followup clues are similar signposts, just as prior fairs have been. birds flocking together into a yard with items strewn about… a novel that is constructed thru active participation… a collage of the amusing connections that have been presented thus far…

i am assuming that this is indeed a meta-puzzle.

if im correct, then i would be willing to add my clue and interpretation to the mix of the initial-3. in particular, my clue is the link ive provided to rosie-odonnells-gay-wedding.

to be fair (sorry, i enjoyed that pun), i should at least look up the theme for the upcoming fair. otoh, many people show up to these events without any prior knowledge and/or disregarding the themes purportedly used…

OK…I know a lot of you are savoring the suspense, BUT IT’S KILLING ME!! I want to know the answer already! I can come up with way too many things that MIGHT be the answer and in the end, I don’t know what kind of answer is being sought. Is it something tangible, or perhaps an idea is being represented? We can have neverending speculation on what it means, but I don’t want to be the guinea pig for other people’s amusement, airing out the inner workings of my mind. I say OUT WITH THE ANSWER!

As if the answer wasn’t 42. that one was really good. Sorry this comment is really new. but I wanted to try and guess, but I am clueless. It feels so weird commenting now. This discussion happened 3 years ago. I am commenting on someones past. Freaky!

Most of the crap that spreads around the internet is like that. In this case, it shows something popular, (Elvis), and it references The World Fair–which is what brings this all together–but it’s still basically just rehash.

which are immaterial, actually. however, im sure that their reasoning will be fascinating to read about once the puzzle has been solved. in fact i could hypothesize (like the others) as to what each item originally meant to the original supplier of its representation. whether the clues combine together or not is also immaterial. again, it will be fascinating to read about whether there actually WAS a unifying theme present among the initial presentees.

Cross My Heart and Hope to Die (“I miss those kisses from your honeycomb, This humble bumble bee just wants to fly back home”), Cindy, Cindy (“I wrote it in a letter, carved it on a tree, Told it to a honeycomb, told it to a bee), and In Your Arms (“Just like a bee in a honeycomb, I’m gonna make myself right at home, In your arms, In your arms).